Here is the summary of our 2019 season: a run down of our route, followed by a cost review.

This season was a shorter one than previous seasons, bookended with a month long stay in Monastir whilst we took some land travel and an early arrival into our winter berth to sort out some issues back in the UK.

From Tunisia we covered a lot of ground in a short time, passing through our previous years’ routes to take us to France, where we spent the majority of our time, almost two months.

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The final legs of our 2019 summer cruise certainly gave us some tales to tell. After doing the tourist thing in Barcelona we had a nerve shredding departure. September's Gota Fria storm had us boat bound in Sant Carles de la Rapita followed by a bumpy ride down the east coast of Spain to our winter home in Cartagena.

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At the end of August, we arrived in north east Spain sunshine and light winds, full of enthusiasm for a new country.

However, Spain threw a few unexpected challenges our way - blocked fuel hoses, broken toes and an extremely lively bout of weather just some of what we had to deal with.

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We spent almost two months moving slowly along the French coast, heading west. From Antibes we visited numerous anchorages, including Iles de Lerins, Theoule Sur Mer, Ile Porquerolles, La Ciotat and Calanque de Soumiou, and several more.
We found welcoming harbours to park the dinghy, coastal paths to explore and Provencal Markets to buy French speciality foods.
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Our return to France had been a long time coming - our first visit being way back in 2004 to Fecamp on the north coast.

This time it would be the south coast that we were sailing towards - the Cote d'Azur - and specifically Villefranche Sur Mer. We spent two weeks in it's protected Rade, taking time out for land trips to Nice and Monaco and exploring the local area.

We found France to be a very welcoming place to sailors as well as knowing how to celebrate summer with free music, fireworks and bals.

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